


Welcome to my Life

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Following
Genre: Angst, Community: 1_million_words, F/M, Het, Pre-Canon, Romance, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1501751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years before the Carroll case, Mike and Debra meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to my Life

**Author's Note:**

> For the April song fic challenge at 1_million_words. Song is "Welcome to My Life" by Simple Plan

The first time Debra meets Mike, it's not on the Carroll case. It's two years before that, outside a cult compound in the wilds of West Virginia, a BAU/Alternate Religions joint operation that is ringing far too many bells of Serenity Hills for Debra to be entirely comfortable. On the other side of the barricade is a siege that has some of the older BAU agents muttering the word "Waco" in hushed tones and the whole atmosphere in FBI circles is tense at best. 

Or maybe, Debra thinks as she slips outside the vans, takes a deep breath of fresh air, maybe it's just her casting her emotions on the rest of the team. All she knows is that every time she closes her eyes, she sees her parents, sees Dale, sees the compound where she grew up. She can almost feel the weight of the necklace, heavy like it's choking her and she wants nothing more than for this operation to be over, doesn't much care how it ends and she doesn't care what that makes her sound like.

"You look like you could use this."

She jumps at the voice beside her, hand going over her chest (right where the necklace would have been, burning like a brand) and looks into the blue eyes of Agent Mike Weston, the youngest member of the BAU team on site, second youngest of the BAU overall. This is one of his first operations and he looks like it, all puppy dog enthusiasm and boundless energy, making her feel tired and jaded just looking at him. She certainly feels that now as her eyes glance down at the steaming plastic cup he's holding out to her. 

"Coffee," he adds. "Black, two sugars." It's exactly how she likes it and she blinks in surprise, even as her hand, seemingly of its own volition, reaches out and takes it from him. 

"You know how I take my coffee?" she asks and he shrugs with a smile. Damn it, she never knew eyes could actually twinkle. 

"Profilers," he says. "We notice all sorts of things."

"Don't tell me you're profiling me based on my coffee." She hears herself saying the words, realises with a start that it almost sounds like she's flirting with him. 

She's not, of course. That's not who she is. 

"Well, since that would say that you're a lot bitter but a little sweet, I'd say probably not," he replies and her smile freezes, because the first part, at any rate, is way too close for comfort. Seeing her reaction, he blinks and takes a step back, still smiling. "See you in there."

She sips the coffee as she watches him walks away.

She feels warm for the first time all day and she tells herself it's just the coffee that did it. 

*

When the joint operation ends, it's a bad ending, though not as bad as it could have been, which is a phrase Debra can apply to the operation as a whole. She's honest enough with herself to admit that it's mostly to do with a pair of blue eyes that seem to follow her around the command centre and she can't believe that no-one else has noticed it. 

Of course, maybe they have and they're just not saying it. 

Because whatever signals Mike is giving out, Debra is not returning them. Not for the usual reasons either, not quite. It's only partially to do with her past and with trust issues and it's far more to do with the fact that she can see Mike Weston is a good man. For all that he's in the FBI, in the BAU no less, he's still an innocent, because while he knows academically of the evils the world can hold, he doesn't know it personally. 

He doesn't know what it's like to look into the face of evil, to feel its hands moving over your skin. He doesn't know what it's like to be abandoned by those who are supposed to love you, who are supposed to keep you safe, doesn't know what it's like to be completely alone, where the only thing that stops you breaking down is the knowledge that there's no-one there to help put you back together again. 

He's never been through anything in his life that would allow him to understand that and she can't tell him about that part of her life. Not because she doesn't want to but because Mike Weston is a good man, too good for her. She knows that and she won't let her past sully that, doesn't want that knowledge to touch him. 

She makes herself that promise with every intention of keeping it. 

She manages it too, until the night of the debrief when he asks her to dinner and she's too wrung out and overwrought to refuse him. 

Enjoying herself comes as a surprise, letting him take her home is something entirely different and when those eyes smile at her in the morning light, she can't bring herself to think that it's a mistake. 

*

It's not the one off that she intends for it to be, but it's not something that happens regularly enough to be called a relationship. If that's something that Mike isn't happy with, he never says anything about it to her. Just like he never says anything about it to her when the nightmares wake her up, when he learns after the first time to give her a moment, to not immediately reach out and touch her, not make any moves to hold her until she's good and ready. He doesn't push her for answers she's not ready to give, just looks at her with those blue eyes that know nothing of her life and tries his best to make things better. 

It doesn't work but it means something to her that he's willing to try. 

She's not sure what it means but it means something and she tries not to think about that too much because she feels like if she looks at it too much, it'll all fall apart. 

That's what usually happens after all. 

*

Except that that's not what happens here.

Because they're each in their own way perfectly content with whatever it is they have and then  two years after they meet for the first time, Joe Carroll escapes from jail and their world goes to hell around them. 

She's head of Alternate Religions by then, he's still with the BAU, but unlike the first task force they worked on together, this one starts bad and gets worse. 

The first time she sees him after Troy Riley is killed is the worst; that's what she thinks at the time anyway. He comes to her room in the motel, which since she's his boss is a huge no-no, but when he looks at her, when she sees the pain in his eyes, she is lost. It's only there for a moment and then he's kissing her and she's dragging him towards the bed and they try their best to forget about everything but the two of them, if only for a few hours. 

After Dutchess County, where she's surrounded by memories of Serenity Hills and he's saved from a bullet to the chest by the vest he was wearing, she can't even look at him, certainly can't let him touch her. She tries not to notice the hurt in his eyes when she closes the door with him still on the other side but that night, when the nightmares wake her, she misses his presence. 

The next time she touches him is when she visits him in the hospital when he's been inches away from death. She holds his hand and wonders what the hell is going to happen next and she leaves before he wakes up. 

She doesn't see him again until they're deep in the bowels of an armoury depot and he's snappy and impatient with everyone. Not even Ryan, his hero, is immune from his ire and Debra, already spooked from the night before and the close call she had, doesn't know what to do with that. It's only when they're in the car on the way to Brian Fowler's house that she realises what about Mike is so unsettling to her. 

It's his eyes. 

Those eyes that once upon a time were so bright and innocent now have a totally different look to them, and Debra knows where she's seen it before. 

She's seen it in her own eyes when she looks in the mirror on her worst days. 

She'd never wanted to see that look in Mike's eyes, never wanted him to know what those feelings were like. 

"Welcome to my life," she thinks, and there is no joy there. 

*

Joy comes the next day, however, in a Havenport police station, as unlikely a place as any. Debra's been there since early but she'd left a sleeping Mike in her bed - released from hospital, he'd arrived at her motel room in the early hours of the morning, whispered kisses and apologies and touches until Debra looked into his eyes and saw the real Mike looking back at her. 

She sees it again when he greets them as he walks in, gives a pithy comment to Ryan and a smile and a look to her that makes her want to do nothing but smile back. 

She does and she can't remember the last time something or someone had that effect on her. 

Maybe, she thinks, that's a sign that they're going to be ok - both of them. 


End file.
